After Paul was pelted with stones, dragged outside the city gates, and left for dead the Lord revived him and he walked back into Lystra looking like nothing had ever happened to him. Luke doesn't tell us that he preached the gospel there again, but I think we can safely assume he did because Paul preached the gospel wherever he went. When we closed yesterday Luke told us that on the next day Paul and Barnabas and the people with them departed for Derbe, a city located in the Roman province of Galatia about sixty miles from Lystra.
"They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples." (Acts 14:21a) The trip to Derbe is a success. We should take note that they don't win all the people for Christ. It would be a rare thing for every single inhabitant of a city to hear the gospel and accept Christ. It doesn't discourage Paul and Barnabas that there are always some who reject the gospel. It shouldn't discourage us either. If Paul and Barnabas went to Derbe and only one person there came to know Jesus Christ as their Savior, the trip would have been a success. It's not our job to keep count; it's our job to fulfill the commission Christ gave us when He said to go into all the world and share the gospel.
I think it was in a book by Christian fiction author Frank Peretti that a young minister, when asked why he decided to become a preacher of the gospel, answered, "I want to win the whole world for Christ!" The young man's spiritual mentor wanted him to understand from the very beginning that not everyone he preached the gospel to would accept it, so he said, "Not even Christ won the whole world for Christ." Not everyone who actually saw Jesus Christ in the flesh or witnessed His miracles accepted His message from His own mouth. Not everyone who hears the gospel from our lips will accept it either. We can't let that stop us. Paul and Barnabas didn't let it stop them. Jesus Christ didn't let it stop Him. Let's not allow it to stop us either.
"Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. 'We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,' they said." (Acts 14:21b-22) These men return to the same cities where they recently endured persecution by some of the Jewish religious leaders. They return in order to strengthen the disciples, which proves to us that their preaching in these cities was not in vain. Some believed and became followers of Christ. The apostles remind their listeners that it costs to follow Christ. In some areas of the world today it can still cost people their lives to follow Christ, but many of them follow Him anyway. Following Christ can cost us popularity, promotions, approval, or inclusion in the "in crowd". If nothing else it will cost us the achievement of our own selfish and sinful desires and ambitions as we daily say to the Lord, "Not my will, but Yours, be done."
"Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust." (Acts 14:23) Led by the Holy Spirit, these men appoint elders in each church. These elders will be responsible for overseeing administrative church duties and for giving spiritual guidance and encouragement to the church members.
"After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed." (Acts 14:24-26) This is Antioch in Syria, not Pisidian Antioch. This is the church Barnabas was working with when he decided to go fetch Paul (at the time called Saul) from Tarsus to help him. This is the church that supported their missionary journey with prayers and with finances and supplies. After completing this first missionary journey the men return to the church that sent them out to report everything that has taken place.
"On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed there a long time with the disciples." (Acts 14:27-28) This must have been a happy season in Antioch. The journey has been a success. God is doing mighty things. Souls are being saved. Paul and Barnabas and their companions enjoy a time of rest and fellowship with their friends at the church in Antioch as they recount all the wonderful things that have happened.
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